The Ship Errant

Chapter Seventeen

The first thing anyone would notice was the poster. Mirina saw it on short-range screens before they had quite landed on the plain. Once she could examine it in detail, she was impressed.

Painted or printed at the top of the huge, white signboard was a pair of silhouetted beings, species indeterminate, exchanging shapeless bundles. Beneath the image of the traders was depicted pictures of certain commodities in various recognizable forms that the trader would accept in exchange for his wares. The first line was an irregular lump of gold, half in and out of quartz matrix; the gold was shown next pressed into an ingot, then as the molecular diagram of the element, and weight at certain gravity, then as various artifacts into which gold could be shaped, such as cups, wire, circuit boards, statues, jewelry. He wishes, Mirina thought. Other lines showed crystals, from simple quartzite sand up through diamond and radioactive crystalline forms; precious metals; radioactives; iron and steel; marble, alabaster, and other decorative heavy stone. Handcrafts were welcome, too. A depiction of weaving and various finished products showed a real familiarity with textile manufacture. Jewelry, pottery, furniture, and practically any type of merchandise approved by the Central Exchange Commission had been pictured in minute detail, but still leaving room for the individual to offer variations. So tidy a mind that could design a sign like this appealed to her. This Keff had a completist's attitude: that everything can be set out so no one misunderstands, and everyone goes away happy. If she'd been staying on with Bisman, she might have suggested such a sign for them.

There were three more lines at the bottom of the signboard, showing various kinds of weapons: guns, lasers, bows, whips, garottes, with a big red X through each. This trader didn't want just anything, Mirina noted. Even if an alien didn't understand what the X or the color red meant at once, it would understand that there was something different about the acceptability of certain things. That showed a kind of morality that she had tried without success to impose on the Melange. No matter. That part of her life would soon be behind her. The signboard was worn and battered, as if it had been in and out of a cargo hold a thousand times. She glanced at the trader in the midst of his wares. Perhaps it had. He certainly looked as if he'd seen a few days himself.

Keff, if it was he, was not a youth. He looked to be about her own age, around forty. A man of middle height with very broad shoulders, trim and fit, he was dressed for comfort in a gaudy tunic and a pair of exercise pants going saggy around the ankle underneath a clear environment suit, the only part of his attire that looked new. The top of the helmet had been opaqued against the hot Thelerie sun. The dark halo threw into prominence his brown, curly hair, and fair skin, made pink by the heat. He was at work straightening piles of goods. Two, little, boxy servo robots rumbled up and down the rows between the stacks, putting things back in order or holding up goods for the Thelerie to see. When the raider crew spread out, the boxies accepted them as customers, and held up on display any item by which anyone stopped for more than a few seconds. And what merchandise!

"He's got half a spaceship scattered on the ground," Mirina whispered to Bisman as they pushed their way along the dusty aisle toward the stranger. "Look at that: hull plates, exhaust locks, life-support circuitry-I don't know what that is." She pointed at a green, pressed-plastic tub about three meters across and two deep that had several protuberances sticking inward over the lip. A couple of locals were looking it over with the aim of making a planter out of it.

Thunderstorm and some of his staff were counting small circuit boards through the plastic of a storage pouch. They stopped to give the respectful greeting to the humans, but went back to their examination. Bisman's face crimsoned with suppressed fury over the whole situation. Mirina thought he might go into an apoplectic fit. She was annoyed, too, at the nonchalance this character showed.

"There must be thirty Thelerie here," Bisman said furiously, shouldering past them. More natives were winging in at every moment, landing at a remove from the scatter of merchandise and loping forward curiously. "What happened to security?"

"Thunderstorm can't control every centimeter of this planet," Mirina said, reasonably, glancing back over her shoulder at the Space Sayas. He looked very nervous, and she patted the air in a calming gesture toward him. "I can't believe this stranger's here all alone."

"Fool evidently has no fear," Bisman said. "Can you believe it? He landed on a strange world and set up shop, never thinking anybody might take a shot at him!"

"There's probably some sophisticated armaments in his ship," Mirina speculated, glancing around. She spotted it at last, and wondered how she had missed it. It stood tall and pure of shape in a niche formed by the natural rock wall at the edge of the plateau, like a classical statue in an alcove. "What a beauty!"

Bisman glanced up in the direction she pointed, and whistled as he made a mental estimate.

"There's money behind him," he said, at last. "We ought to be able to help ourselves to some of it."

"You're Keff?" Bisman asked.

"Who wants to know?" Keff said, stacking white enameled plates. The servo came over and took them away from him with a touch of impatience that was all Carialle's. He let go of the piece of hull and straightened up to greet his new "customer."

His eyes were a vivid blue in the pink-cheeked face. Mirina realized with a shock how attractive he was, and unconsciously thrust out one hip and put a hand on it. Keff grinned at her. Abashed, she stood up straight, folding her arms across her chest.

"Hot day, isn't it, friends?" Keff asked.

"You don't seem surprised to see other human beings," she said.

Keff laughed. "When I landed, these nice people addressed me in my own language," he said. "It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that they've known human people for a long, long time. They didn't get the language from tapes. There were chairs in that building over yonder, though none of the locals can sit on them. And your friend here," he pointed to Thunderstorm, "uses colloquialisms."

"Colloq…?" Bisman waved away the unfamiliar word. "So what if he does? If they're in good working order, who cares?" Though Mirina could tell it was costing him something of an effort, he put out a hand to the stranger. "This is Mirina Don. I'm Aldon Bisman."

"Thought it was Fisman," Keff said exasperatingly. "That's what the locals called you. Just call me Keff." He was so damned cheerful, Mirina thought, she might like to strangle him herself. Then he turned the intense blue gaze on her, and she felt her cheeks flame with red. He was very, very attractive. He looked her up and down, with a quick, insouciant flick of those eyes. She should have been offended, but instead, she threw back her hair and raised her chin in defiance. He gave her a grin of approval.

"Damned Thelerie can't say their damned b's," Bisman said. "When are you moving on?"

"When I've finished doing business," Keff said. He straightened up and looked Bisman in the eye. He might have been several inches shorter than the raider, but Mirina, with the eye of long experience, thought he'd be a match for him. The way Keff stood so naturally on the balls of his feet instead of flat on the soles suggested he lived unarmed combat. Formidable, attractive… and smack in the middle of the Melange's patch. She had to remember that. He was an intruder. He represented the outside world. It spelled the end of the Thelerie's sheltered existence, and she couldn't have that.

"What kind of goods do you have here?" Mirina asked.

"Oh, see for yourself. I sell a lot of things. I do a rather good line on state-of-the-art spaceship parts, right out of the heart of the CW," Keff said. Mirina exchanged a glance with Bisman, and saw the light of greed in his eyes. And small wonder, too, with that array on the ground.

"Looks like you have a whole spaceship spread out here," Bisman said, conversationally.

Keff laughed again, but a little nervously. "When you pick things up here and there, they accumulate," he said.

"Good guess," Carialle said, auditing the conversation from four hundred meters away. "Good thing he hasn't got the Cridi's skill for abstract puzzle-solving, or he'd see for sure! I'm glad your new design doesn't look like the old ships, Narrow Leg, or these folks would have spotted the resemblance in an instant. Can't have that."

Narrow Leg sat on the console in front of the biggest screentank. In Carialle's protective atmosphere, he and the others were able to move around, free of their travel globes. They watched the screens around the main cabin that were not obscured by the shipbuilder's person.

"I do not like having my ship all to pieces on the ground," he said, wringing his big hands together as on the screen Mirina kicked some of the components. "Do not touch that, silly human!" he wailed shrilly. "That is a delicate power regulator!"

"This stuff is junk," the woman said, turning over a brand-new engine accelerator valve still covered with protective lubricant. "I'll give you fifty credits for it, no more."

"No, thank you," the unseen Keff said, blithely, his hand taking the component away from her and setting it delicately on the top of a servo, who spirited it away. "It's worth a lot more than that."

"Oh, yes? How do you expect me to make a profit on it if I pay you more?" Mirina asked. The woman turned to watch the robot whisk the accelerator valve to the end of a row and set it down on a rickety folding table.

"Aren't we greedy?" Carialle commented.

"I don't expect you to make a profit on it; I expect me to make a profit on it," Keff's voice said. "I expect you to use it. I prefer to serve the end-user. If you don't want it, someone else will."

She shrugged. "It's junk. Who else would?"

Narrow Leg's black eyes bulged until Carialle thought they would pop.

"How dare she denigrate the components of my ship! They are perfect! I rejected eight to the power of six of that valve before choosing that one! It was the product of ten to the power of sixteen calculations and designs!" His voice rose into almost inaudible registers.

"It's a bargaining ploy," Big Eyes said, floating over from her perch on the round table to try to calm her father. She put a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he shook it off irately. "You exist in the rarefied waters of science too much. You should come to the bazaar, and dig through the mud with me some time. Then you would hear worse than this."

"Bah." Narrow Leg was not appeased. He turned to Carialle's frog image on the near bulkhead. "What if they take some of our parts away?"

"We have many spares," Gap Tooth called to him.

"They are all out there, mains and spares," Narrow Leg gestured angrily.

Big Voice was clearly amused to see his old adversary discomfitted for once. With a tiny flick of his fingers, he drew just enough power from Carialle's engines to glide up from the weight bench and over where the shipbuilder was sitting.

"Keff will protect your ship parts," he said.

"And if he cannot?" Narrow Leg demanded, glaring upward. "How do you expect to get home?"

Big Voice snapped his fingers, making the gold fingerstalls click. "We do not need your ship. Carialle will bring us back to Cridi."

"I will, if necessary," Carialle promised the anguished captain. "But your craft will be restored as soon as possible."

"I am not happy," Narrow Leg said. He hunched up his kness and wrapped his skinny arms around them. The small bundle shot off the console and disappeared into the lap of the crash couch behind him.

"Leave him alone," Big Eyes signed, flitting away from the chair like a tadpole swimming in a pond. "It is no use communicating with him when he is like this."

"He should be adaptable, like me," Big Voice said aloud.

From inside the huge chair came a disbelieving "Hah!"

"My child looks nervous," Noonday said, speaking up timidly. "He has shown disrespect to humans, and it weighs upon his conscience." The Sayas and two of her Ro-sayo sat in the corner, out of the way of the Cridi. Noonday occupied Keff's weight bench; and the Ro-sayo, a spare mattress pad from the cargo hold. Carialle switched her monitor away from the conversation Keff was having with the raiders, and zoomed in on Thunderstorm. The Space Sayas went about his shopping as he'd been told to do, but he wasn't happy.

"He's doing fine," Carialle assured his parent, enlarging the view on the screen nearest the weight bench for the sake of the Thelerie visitors. "He did exactly what he was supposed to, to make the Melange jealous. We don't want them thinking too clearly. People blurt things out when they are angry."

"Flurt?" Noonday asked, her beautiful eyes puzzled.

"Speak forcefully without thinking," Carialle said, slowly.

"These learn," Small Spot said, proudly. He sat as close to the Thelerie as they would allow him. "I teach them more Standard, which I know."

"You're doing fine, too," Carialle assured him, privately amused.

"I cannot believe the beauty of this ship, Carialle," Noonday said. "I see, but my eyes must lie-such things as this and the Cridi ship, they are as dreams."

Narrow Leg was somewhat soothed by the compliments. His wrinkled, green face appeared over the top of the crash couch.

"Not a dream. State-of-the-art for now," he peeped. "We move ahead, always ahead." Carialle transposed the voice to a baritone register and amplified it so Noonday and the others could listen without pain.

"We are getting used to them," Noonday said, to the air. Carialle could tell that she still didn't really understand a human who lived in the walls, nor one who could look like a frog at will, but followed the Cridi's example of behaving as if Carialle was there in the room with them. Shellperson existence was a facet of human experience that had never yet come their way.

She wondered what the CenCom would make of Thelerie, and if they would try to withdraw the technology humans had given them to date, on the grounds that they wouldn't have evolved it yet themselves. She hoped not, but bureaucrats could be so rulebound!

Carialle herself had become completely comfortable with Thelerie. Having had Noonday, Thunderstorm, the Ro-Sayo, and a large number of former members of the Melange tour through her ship during the last several days, she was convinced that none of their gaits matched the footsteps she remembered transiting what was left of her hull after her accident, not even accounting for weightlessness and grav-boots. They were absolved. The question remained: who?

"Well, we might have an offer for you ourselves," Bisman said, rocking back on his heels and staring up at the sun. "We'll take the whole line off your hands, on condition that you take it, and don't come back."

"I can't do that," Keff said. "I have obligations to fulfill."

"The Circuit," Bisman said. Keff nodded. "Where's it based?"

"Oh, here and there," Keff said, too casually.

"Well, it won't be here," Bisman said, not at all fooled. "You have two days, then I want to see your tail-rockets up there." He pointed toward the sky.

"No can do," Keff said, looking pathetically at both leaders. Mirina wasn't moved. "The lady who runs the Circuit would make life miserable for me. You'll understand." And he flashed that insouciant grin once again.

Mirina found that they were getting nowhere with the trader. It stood to reason that a traveler who went around in a fancy ship like that with top-shelf goods like these on the edge of nowhere wouldn't be easy to bluff, but was he too cocky? Bisman might get so frustrated that he would attack him right here. She could stop him, but couldn't prevent the rest of the crew piling in on a fight. At least Zonzalo and Sunset would stay out of it. She'd been very firm in her orders. For whatever reason, neither one argued.

Bisman started some low-level threats on Keff, nothing overt or too nasty, and found his sallies thrown back in his face. Mirina stood by, turning over the odd component or two with her toe. He had some of the damnedest things for sale. Oil paintings? She bent to examine them. A small space-scape caught her eye. She thought she recognized the subject as Dimitri DMK-504-R. Piled anyhow underneath it were the study of a planet she couldn't identify, a lake at sunset, a beautifully detailed portrait of a cat stalking a leaf, and a color sketch of a couple in yellow and silver, holding a baby dressed in deep, burgundy red.

"You've wandered into our patch," Bisman was saying over her head.

"Did you paint these?" Mirina asked, suddenly, interrupting them. She nudged the pile with the side of her foot. "They're good!"

She was rewarded with the warm grin. "No. A friend of mine does them."

"He has talent," Mirina said.

"She. Thank you. I'll pass the compliment along. Maybe you'd like to buy something?" Keff asked, with just the right air of hope.

"Maybe not," Mirina said, crossing her arms again. Good God, he was pushy!

"Oh, then on my next stop here," he said, cheerfully, not at all put off. "You folks get around here much?"

"Now, listen, friend," Bisman said, poking Keff in the chest to get his attention. "There won't be another stop here for you."

"Really?" Keff asked. "I won't ask, 'you and what army,' because I've been watching your toughs gather around me for the last ten minutes, and I promise you I'm just not as green as I am cabbage-looking."

"What?" Mirina demanded, having followed his conversation up until then.

"Save the ancient colloquialisms yourself," Carialle growled in his ear. Keff clicked his tongue in acknowledgement. He had his hand on the top of the red box marked "Medical Waste," where Tall Eyebrow was concealed. One rap, and these brutes would be frozen in place. He hated to show his trump card right away. He would never get what he needed if he was too cocky.

"Sorry," he said, smiling at the woman. "I mean, I was not born yesterday. You don't think for a minute that I don't know how defenseless I look." She paused. Keff noticed Bisman's hand sweep down in a gesture that looked casual, but all the other spacers stopped moving toward them.

"So you have some kind of defense in that fancy airplane of yours," Bisman said casually.

"Airplane, hah," Carialle said. "Look at the flying refuse heap he came in."

"Shh!…sssure," Keff said. "My… employer wouldn't let me out without adequate protection."

"The Circuit," Bisman said flatly.

"You've heard of us?"

"No, I haven't. You could be a fly-by-night operation with one ship and an attitude. I've seen your kind before."

"Started that way yourself, did you?" Keff asked, and had the satisfaction of seeing the pirate start violently.

"The Melange comes from an old family tradition," Bisman corrected him with a sharp look.

"Ah! Your father," Keff translated.

The present-day Bisman breasted up to Keff and glared down at him. "Listen, character, you gather up all your debris, and you lift off of this world within thirty Standard hours."

"My boss will get tetchy if I don't come back with a deal," Keff said, plaintively, his hands spread in appeal. Bisman crossed his arms. Out of the corner of his eye, Keff could see the crew on the move again. "No, eh?"

"Too bad," Bisman was saying. "You tell him he's accidentally impinged on hazardous territory."

"She," Keff corrected him. "You wouldn't believe how tough the broad is at the center of the Circuit. Your threats would make her laugh out loud."

"Oh, Keff, I love it!" Carialle's chuckle sounded in his ear. "Tell him it's a neural-synaptic network, which means we're never far away from the active arm of our organization."

Keff passed on Carialle's words, and enjoyed the puzzled look on the pirates' faces as the two did mental translations. Bisman, at least, came up empty.

"What's this tough broad's name?" the older man asked.

"Carialle."

"Carialle what?"

"None of your business," Keff said, nonchalantly, raising his eyebrows.

"It is if we're going to do business with you," Bisman said.

"And who says you are?" Keff asked. "You want me off what you call your patch. Who in the frosty void do you think you are?"

"Look," Bisman said, suddenly looking bored with him. "I don't talk to underlings. I want to talk to this Carialle."

"Hmmm… Might be arranged," Keff said.

"I want a meeting. You can arrange it."

"Well, I'll see what I can do," Keff said, bending down to accept a bag of circuit boards from one of the loader robots. He glanced up at Thunderstorm and the young apprentice from the pirate ship. The older Thelerie had an anxious look on his face.

"Fine, fine," Keff called, waving to the Sayas. "I'll put the value down on a slate for you. Keep looking! You never know if you'll find something else you like." He smiled at Bisman. "It may take some time to get a message through to Carialle, but I'll send one right away and tell her you want to talk with her."

"Face-to-face," Bisman said, tapping Keff painfully in the middle of the chest once for every syllable.

While Keff stood there thoughtfully rubbing his chest, Bisman hustled Mirina away. He grabbed Thunderstorm by a claw on the way by.

"Your pavilion," he hissed. "Now!"

Thunderstorm loped unhappily behind them over the stony ground. Mirina could feel the storm of fury growing, but Bisman didn't let fly until they were safely under the roof.

"You're avoiding me," Bisman snapped, rounding at once on the Thelerie. Waving a finger under Thunderstorm's nose, he backed the Sayas up until he bumped into his own desk sling. "Don't try to deny it. I've known you too long. I told you we had stuff for you. You should be buying from us, and only us."

"Tell us about this man," Mirina said, more kindly. The Thelerie looked from one human to the other, clattering his claws together nervously. He settled over the sling and continued tapping his fingertips on the desktop until Bisman glared at him to stop.

"This Keff landed here one day. He said he had goods we might like. And so we do!" Thunderstorm said, miserably. "Things that the Melange has been unable to get for many years, are here! You see the temptation is great. And others saw him before I did, so I could not hide him. They like these goods."

"I understand that," Bisman said. "He's got a few things I might take myself. What I'm talking about is no apprentices. You must have some about ready to ship out. Where are they?"

"I… I do not have any I am ready to send. There is more to know."

"Haven't they memorized the Manual?" Mirina asked, puzzled.

"Oh, yes," Thunderstorm said, at once. "In that they are proficient."

"Then what's the hangup?" Bisman asked, banging a fist on the desk. "You know what kind of rewards there are in space travel."

"Yes," Thunderstorm replied, more thoughtfully than usual. "I know."

"So why are you being cagey with us?"

"The air is bad in ships," Thunderstorm said suddenly. "The old ones who I see have weakness in the thorax from lack of elemental acids."

"Chlorine?" Mirina asked.

"Yes," Thunderstorm said.

"Hell, then we'll work out a medical system. Miri… no, I'll work something out," Bisman said, dismissing Mirina. She glared, then realized she had no right to complain. He'd accepted her resignation, and he was letting her go.

"It will still take time before any are ready," Thunderstorm said, timidly. "The training continues."

Bisman walked to the entrance of the pavilion. "Next time I won't take no for an answer, Thunder. There are ships out there who need Thelerie apprentices. Just remember who your friends are." With an apologetic glance back at the terrified Thelerie, Mirina followed him out.

Bisman reported the conversation to the others on the ship. The reivers clustered in the galley grumbled about another setback.

"Dammit, this tears the trip out to Sungali," Glashton said. "Hannah had a collection for us. It's not worth burning the fuel if we have to turn around and bring her a navigator on a separate trip."

"At least we can't blame this problem on the trader," Mirina said.

"No, dammit, but he might have said something that set them off," Bisman said, with growing heat. He kicked a battered cabinet door, adding a black bootmark to the damage he'd done it in hundreds of other temper tantrums. Mirina wouldn't miss that part of Aldon Bisman at all.

"Perhaps he's tired of talking to the families of the ones who don't come home again," she said, pointedly.

"Shut up!" Bisman said, rounding on her. "You want out anyhow. This isn't any of your business anymore." He slammed his hand on the countertop. "I've got to find the pressure point, get Thunder back into line, and soon. These Thelerie are a hell of a lot of trouble."

"Well, why are we bothering to go to so much trouble for them, then?" Zonzalo said with disgust.

"Because the soulfrigging flying barnacles can't get lost, that's why," Bisman exploded. "You know that, you young idiot. They always know their way back home, and everywhere in proportion to home. It happened to me once, being lost without a navigator. I never want that to happen again. Wandering lost in eternity may appeal to you, but it scares me juiceless!"

"And there's the fuel," Mirina said thoughtfully. "I didn't see any Thelerie merchandise out on that field. Did Keff spot the refinery and offer to trade for a tankload?"

"Whatever it is doesn't matter," Bisman said. "We find out what there is to know about this Circuit, and what defenses this Keff is packing in that pretty ship of his. He'll get a meeting set up with this Carialle, and I'll strangle him in front of her as a lesson to stay out of our way."

"And then what?" Mirina asked.

"Then we take care of all of the Circuit," Bisman said. "We've got the Slime Ball, remember?"

"Who knows how many there'll be?" Mirina asked. "The Ball could overheat any day, and then we'll have nothing."

"We've got more than sixty ships and enough armament to carpet a planet," Bisman said offhandedly. "I'll start calling 'em in right away. If he wants to make this system the prize in a blood game, we'll oblige him."

"I don't want the Thelerie hurt!" Mirina said, alarmed at the idea.

"Shut up," Bisman said, facing her down. "Either help, or get out of the way. You're just waiting for an offworld ship now, right?"

It stung, but Mirina had asked for it. "Right," she said. She rose and stalked out of the galley. Zonzalo got up to follow her, but his footsteps stopped at the hatchway. Mirina went back to her cabin alone.

"Are they gone?" Keff asked the air.

"Sealed up in their wretched ship," Carialle said. "They might have a passive scan on you, but it's nothing I'm picking up. Their telemetry equipment is as haphazard as their engines."

"Thank heavens," Keff said. One of the servos rumbled up to him, and he put the Medical Waste box onto its flat top. He slapped the robot's side. "Move it out, quickly. Is the tub full?"

"Big Eyes has it ready and waiting, with an electrolyte shake on the side."

Keff trotted along behind the drone. The sun was setting over the planetary-west horizon, and he glimpsed two moons rising golden above the mountain ranges. Very pretty landscape, he thought, but too, too hot.

"Are you okay in there, TE?" he asked, through his helmet mike.

"Okay," came a faint croak.

"Hurry it up, Cari," Keff said, more concerned. He didn't like the way the globe-frog sounded. Had he stayed outside too long? The servo rumbled around the edge of the stone cliff, and out of sight at last from the pirates' ship. Keff grabbed the crate bodily off its platform and ran with it into the ship. The other Cridi flew around him as soon as he was past the airlock. The lid of the box flew one way, and the little globe lifted straight out.

The sides of the globe were completely misted over with condensation, which broke up as the others moved it. The Frog Prince's body lay at the bottom, immersed in a few liters of water. He roused as Big Eyes wrenched off the upper half of the travel-globe, and sat up. His eyes glistened in an unusually pinched face, but he waved away offers of help to stand. Noonday, who had watched all afternoon with growing admiration, added her concern.

"He will live?" she asked.

"I live," he said, hoarsely. "It is sometimes worse on Sky Clear."

"You're a hero," Keff said. "If you hadn't been there, I couldn't have pulled that off." The Cridi shook his head.

"It is nothing," Tall Eyebrow signed. He licked his lips, which were visibly dry.

"Tchah! Nothing!" Big Eyes flicked her fingers, and the door of the spare cabin flew open. Tall Eyebrow was whisked straight out of the main cabin. Keff ran along behind into the corridor. He heard rather than saw the splash.

"I am all right!" Tall Eyebrow protested in Cridi. "Do not… blub!" Big Eyes hands had moved, and Keff suspected she swept a wave of the cool water over her loved one's head. He stuck his head in, and saw gallons of water washing across the floor from the small bathroom.

"He is a hero," Big Eyes said, with a look at Keff and the Thelerie, as she sailed in after him. "He does not complain."

"He does what a leader should," Narrow Leg said, nodding.

"Daddy approves, whether he admits it or not," Carialle said, in Keff's aural receiver. "I do love a love story."

"Seeing him in action, you can't help but admire him," Keff agreed.

"It is true," Noonday said, behind them. "The Cridi are most amazing folk." She gathered her wings about her, avoiding the water flying out of the door of the spare cabin. "Now that night falls I must go back. The Ro-sayo and I have much to discuss. You will accompany us?"

"I'd better not," Keff said. "The Melange will be watching me closely now. The Cridi will go, carrying a receiver so you can hear what Carialle and I say."

Noonday looked up, as if she expected to see the pirates and their surveillance. "But how do I go, if you are watched? They will see me."

"Ah," Keff said. "The extreme cleverness of me! Thunderstorm asked a few of your people to wait on the field. They'll come over and give you cover when we lower the hatch again. You'll be one in a crowd of your people making purchases."

The Thelerie were right on time. When Carialle activated the ramp again, Thunderstorm and a cluster of his apprentices fluttered over, some carrying boxes, some carrying other small items. Using Core power, to the great astonishment of the locals, Narrow Leg and the others unloaded the contents of the boxes, and rolled their globes inside.

Tall Eyebrow emerged from the bath with glistening skin. His face still looked rather peaked, but Carialle checked his vital signs, and found them strong. He showed no weakness as he sealed himself into his travel globe. Big Eyes looked at him with dismay.

"You should not go with us," the young female said. "You should rest."

"I am going," Tall Eyebrow argued. "These people have made many sacrifices for us. This is not a risk at all. I am healthy. I must hear what is said."

"You will all be well-maintained," Noonday assured Big Eyes solemnly. "I will look after Tall Eyebrow myself." Big Eyes relented, but grudgingly, and allowed herself to be shut into a plumbing fixture.

"We will be back soon," Narrow Leg said to Keff, via radio, from inside his crate. Each of the Thelerie took one of the containers gingerly in its claw arms, and flew away with it. Shaking his head, he stepped back into the airlock, and Carialle sealed the door.

"A meeting with this tough broad," Carialle said, still enjoying the sound of the phrase. Her Lady Fair image appeared on the wall armed with morningstar and shield. "You mean a holographic manifestation?"

"Yes, but not like that one," Keff said, smiling. "Whatever would work to get the most information out of them. We have to be careful. I don't want them to leave again if there's the least chance an armed ship is on the way, but I don't want to endanger this population. The Thelerie are vulnerable, and they trust humans implicitly because of these brutes."

"The Melange are a mixed curse," Carialle said, thoughtfully. "On the one hand, I'm glad they discovered this race. They're fascinating. On the other hand, if it had been anyone else, the CW could have nurtured the Thelerie's natural development. Look at this place. Except for the smelly air, it's almost a type-G world."

"Yes," Keff said. "I notice the pirates don't bother with air filters."

Carialle caught the hopeful note in his voice. "No," she said flatly. "There is a cumulative effect on your health. The Cridi have been complaining of the residual ammonia brought into the cabin in the lungs of the Thelerie visitors. You keep your suit on."

"Yes, mother," Keff sighed.

Keff had a grasshopper's eye view of the proceedings in the Sayad, from the camera eye carried on Gaptooth's globe. She was carried in a sack by one of Noonday's guards and released into the Sayad chamber to the horror and protest of the Ro-sayo. She rolled at once into the angle of one of the carved beams as the Thelerie glared down into the camera lens.

"Why are they here?" Midnight demanded, as behind him the Cridi freed themselves from the crates and other containers.

"As witnesses," Narrow Leg said, flying out of a box marked "Art Supplies." "And as a conduit for our good friend Keff."

"But they are enemies!"

"They are not," Noonday said, mildly, settling onto her divan cushion. She coughed, and was surrounded at once by Ro-sayo exclaiming concern for her health. Keff felt pleased that the Sayas was held in such esteem.

"You are unharmed?" Winter asked her.

"All is well," she assured them. "I have spent a day in deficient atmosphere. The effects will pass quickly." With a wing-finger, she signalled for the doors to be secured. "Let no one in or out, and have a patrol hover about the windows on the outside. Our guests must remain hidden from view." The guards sprang out and away, spreading their wings to obey their leader's command. The Ro-sayo settled down on their cushions, casting wary eyes on the cluster of Cridi. Thunderstorm drew their eyes away by stalking into the center of the circle of counselors.

"Before they speak," he said, "I have a speech to make, of apology to our neighbors, for it is true what Keff told you. I will speak in Standard where I can, for the sake of our listeners."

He went on to detail the history of the Melange. Although Keff couldn't understand all of the Space Sayas' words, he could tell that many in the room were shocked at the revelations he had for them.

"Then all of our accomplishments were based on lies!" Midnight said.

Thunderstorm bowed his head. "I deserve that," he said. "But we may rebuild, and beginning now, with the help of legitimate representatives of humanity, we shall."

"And how do we know that Keff and the unseen Carialle are truly from the See-Double-Yew?" another Ro-sayo demanded.

"Does it matter?" Noonday asked. "I saw the Melange show hostility to a stranger human, telling him to leave Thelerie, and never return. That isn't the act of a being who believes we are all one."

Thunderstorm smiled. "I assure you, I know real See-Double-Yew. I spent many years robbing their bases and stations. Also of these, the Cridi. A number of the parts of the ships that stand on our own landing pad come from their ships."

Midnight stood, and solemnly bowed to the Cridi. "We owe you reparation." He held out a claw hand. Narrow Leg and Tall Eyebrow exchanged small, subtle signs that Keff had to squint to see. Together, the Cridi opened their globes and rose to their full, though inconsiderable, heights. Exposing their delicate skins and lungs to the sharp air was a stunning display of trust that moved Keff deeply. The two leaders stepped forward to take the Thelerie's narrow talon, one at a time. The other Ro-sayo grudgingly, fearfully, stepped forward to clasp hands with the shining, water-clad amphibioids.

"We will take aid and assistance instead," Narrow Leg said. "The parts are obsoleted with the new design, the one that is," he added with regret, "lying dismembered on the field."

"What can we do to assist?" the other Ro-sayo asked.

"Be prepared," Keff said, speaking through an audio receiver on Gaptooth's globe. "Our intention is to obtain recorded confessions from the Melange as to their activities in this sector for use by our judicial arm. I'm concerned that if the Melange becomes suspicious that we are from the CW, your well-being could be at stake."

"A certain amount of fallout is inevitable," Thunderstorm said, with a shrug of his magnificent wings. "We have contributed to the galaxy's ills by consorting with criminals. Although I absorb all guilt, my people may suffer. I owe all many lives."

"We will not claim them," Big Voice said, rolling forward and puffing himself up majestically. "The thing we must do is get the information needed by Keff and Carialle."

"It is possible that our military is nearby," Carialle added, amused by Big Voice's self-importance. "They must have received our message by now about the Thelerie we left behind on the Cridi system's fifth planet. They could be here soon to take Bisman and his crew into custody."

"If they leave, what of it?" Noonday said, spreading her upper lip. "My child says that the Melange come here often. They have a friendly bond with our people, whatever they have done to others. A capture will occur, now or in the future. We offer the aid of our guardians, if you need them. At present, we will cooperate to get what it is you seek now."

"I hope so," Carialle said. Keff thought he could detect wistfulness in her tone. He smiled at her pillar.

"With such friends, Lady Fair, how can we fail?"